Twenty years ago, Jeff Graham was a teenager playing for a state football championship in his hometown of Chester.

And he’ll never forget it.

“I just think the greatest thing that could happen to a community is hosting a state championship,” said Graham, who is now a highly successful coach at Belt. “I don’t think you could talk to one town that’s hosted a championship that would turn it down. So I’m a big proponent for keeping it in the small towns.”

When Great Falls Central and Flint Creek, which is a co-op formed from teams at Drummond and Philipsburg, play for the C football championship this weekend, the game will be at Naranche Stadium in Butte. That’s the result of a change in C playoff structure that was announced last spring by Montana High School Association officials after a canvassing of affected schools.

The division’s championship football game will rotate between Butte and Billings – both sites have artificial turf stadiums available – in a move designed to enhance the experience for athletes and raise the excitement level for fans.

Graham was against this when it was first announced last spring. And he’s still against it.

“I’ve been called a dinosaur by a few people for not wanting to change,” he said with a soft chuckle. “But I played in a state championship at home (in 1998), and I think it’s about the best there is.”

Chester edged Power for the state title that November, 36-20, before an overflow crowd of more than 1,000. What does Graham remember?

“Just how packed it was, and not just people from Chester but also the surrounding areas,” he said. “People from Power, Denton and a lot of towns were there. That’s what I remember the most.”

Graham said Class C people care about towns other than their own in central Montana, and that makes a difference during state football championship games.

“I got to do the game in Stanford (Six-Man state title game in 2015) for the NFHS network,” he said, “and seeing people from Hobson, Geyser, Belt, Chinook, Chester – all the people who traveled to those closer areas - was really something.

“I haven’t heard from hardly anybody who wants to go to Butte this weekend, but hopefully Central will get a good crew there to support them. Because it’s a huge deal being there.”

All state championship games are available for viewing on the internet via paid subscriptions through the NFHS network.

Saturday’s annual Bobcat-Grizzly game in Missoula offers plenty of competition for the interest of Treasure State football fans. Graham doesn’t think the Class C neutral site plan will help spark significant interest.

“For elderly people, or those who have to work, they won’t go,” he said. “I think you’re going to get a lot of people staying home, watching it online and watching the Cat-Griz game, too.”

Under the former playoff format, it would have worked out that Great Falls Central was the host team for the state championship game this weekend.

Central's home field, behind the high school, doesn't offer many amenities for fans and this time of year the grass surface is frozen. The Mustangs have played at Memorial Stadium the last few weekends, drawing large crowds, and head coach Greg Horton said it's been a memorable experience.

Horton, who played for the Great Falls High Bison back in the day, also understands where Graham is coming from.

“We’re not a typical Class C town, because we’re kind of a community within a community,” Horton said. "Our fans will travel wherever we’re playing. But going to a Class C or Class B state championship game in some of these rural communities in Montana, with everybody lined up 10 deep around the track, that’s what Class C and Class B football is. And that’s what makes it so exciting.

“But as the same time as a coach, and this is where I’m torn, turf fields are just better. They drain better, you don’t have to worry about mud or slipping. You can just line up and play the game, athlete for athlete.”

Great Falls Central Athletic Director Jamie Smith-Stevens also sees both sides of the argument.

“There’s good and bad,” she said. “Yes, you work hard all season to host playoff games and to be home for the state championship game would be great. But I can also see the reason for this. I mean, how many Class C teams have a stadium? And how many Class C teams play on artificial turf?

“So I can see it both ways.”

The MHSA indicated last spring the neutral-site plan had better than 70 percent support across the Class C landscape. Graham said he and others might propose a change sooner rather than later.

“We’ll see how it goes this weekend,” Graham said. “If it works, I’ll have to change my dinosaur mentality. But I’d sure like to see Great Falls considered. If it does work, with all the eight-man teams we have in our area, I think Great Falls has to be in the rotation.”

Imagine, he said, if Central was playing on the turf at Memorial Stadium this weekend instead of the carpet at Naranche.

“If that game happened to be in Great Falls, I bet there would be a huge crowd,” Graham said. “There are pros and cons, but I think having it in the small towns is much better. The bars and the businesses benefit, and then there are older people who can’t travel. So you take that excitement out of a town. And now we’re paying for two teams to travel.

“Just think. If we had to have Scobey and Fairview traveling to Butte, the amount of money those teams would have had to spend would have been crazy … It’s going to be good for Butte this week, with Flint Creek there. But if it had been Central and Shelby, or two teams from the East, I’m just not sure it would have been successful. Taking it out of the small towns is the biggest thing. And why wasn’t Great Falls considered? We’re the closest to everybody.”